This is a list of some books which I have read over the last year or two which I strongly recommend, to the point where I think everybody SHOULD read them. If I were a teacher or lecturer I would put these books on the reading list ranked among the actual topic I was teaching, or I would tell the pupils to read the book instead of actually teaching them something for a bit, because the book would be more useful. None of them are fiction, because although there are loads of great fiction books, I wouldn’t say that fiction books influence the way I view the world or live my life in a factual sense in the same way some non-fiction books have. All of these I found both enjoyable and insightful, with knowledge gained that I think is very good for life.
No particular order. Also, I could’ve linked to all the books on Amazon, but I don’t really like Amazon for being a huge monopolist who makes it difficult for high-street bookshops, and though the big chain stores are annoying, I prefer being able to have a look through books physically before ordering (like sitting at the cafe in a bookshop) and talking to human shop assistants instead of clicking a webpage. I’ll let you decide where to go, I just didn’t want to make it too easy to go to Amazon.
Though I’ll certainly repeat this in many of the mini-reviews, these books all meet the following criteria:
1. Fun and easy to read
2. Interesting
3. Lead to improvement in life and happiness due to increased understanding
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The author is a nobel prize winning psychologist and in the book he reflects over what both he and the scientific community have learned about how the mind works, specifically regarding decision making, in the forty or so years he’s been doing research. It’s written very clearly instead of with dense scientific things, so you don’t get bogged down in working out what it says, and shows you the questions used in the studies so that you can take them too and then see that your mind is flawed itself (though one of the things he points out is that that knowledge won’t really be taken in). I’ve found it useful to see where the natural flaws in my thinking are likely to be (and now I notice them), so hopefully my general analytical and decision making abilities will be slightly improved. It’s quite long, but given that I’m learning new things every chapter this is a good thing. There’s a LOT to learn, especially as I know/knew little about psychology beforehand.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Apologies for the title, it was written in America in 1930. This is a self-help book from before the self-help genre existed (true, not sensationalism) and is all about human interactions. We (probably) have lots each day, so it makes sense to learn about them. The book is an easy read, full of stories (mostly 1930s America style stories, which make it nice to read for the cultural difference too) with simple messages and improvements and ways of thinking about people. He wrote it because he was looking for a textbook on human relations, but finding that none existed he decided to write one, expanding the notes from courses he was teaching into a book. It’s full of basic stuff that appears obvious, but basic stuff that I hadn’t properly thought about and that I (as most other people) don’t do.
Don’t think of yourself as above reading this book, we can almost certainly all learn from it, and it’s definitely helped me to get on better with people and be happier because of it. I’ve read it twice so far (once aged 16, again a few months ago) and will certainly read it again in the future.
Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice by Matthew Said
Often mistakenly viewed as a sports book, this book is about life as a whole, but using sports examples. The author was a world champion table-tennis player and that influences lots of what he writes about, but the message is universal. In one part, he debunks the myth strongly prevalent in our culture that there is such a thing as talent that people are born with (like “Tiger Woods is a natural golfer” or “Alex May was born with an ability to write interesting blog posts” (or make funny ironic statements)) – if you disagree with my saying that this myth is false, you should probably check out the book. Part two is about psychology, happiness, fear, and similar. Part three is about genes (I think). Again, extremely readable and full of stories, but also with lots scientific references and useful points. People often don’t want to believe that talent is a myth because it means they don’t have an excuse apart from laziness…
Antifragile by Nassim Taleb
I think this is technically philosophy (depending on your definition of philosophy), but it is completely applied and not just in the abstract. He’s named the concept of antifragility, which apparently nobody else has mentioned, as being the opposite of fragility (fragile means it gets damaged when it gets shocked; robustness is just the absence of fragility, meaning something ignores shocks; antifragility means things get stronger when they get shocked). Some of the focus is on economics, as the author was a city trader for a number of years, but he applies his analysis to almost every field of life, including choosing social events and not being late for things, career options and making money, or exercise and health. Being aware of this concept has helped me make better decisions, as if I’m now aware of a new dimension to things that I couldn’t see before.1
1984 by George Orwell
I know this technically is fiction, but I’m including it because it’s more a political writing than just a nice story. As with every book in this list, this is a must read. The non-fiction ones will enhance your understand of how life works; this one I consider relevant because of the current political and technological situation we are in. There are accusations of our society being “big brother” or “Orwellian”, and these possibilites should not be taken lightly. The book, in its story, helps us to understand the dangers of this more, in a half-indirect way. More reflections on this book, our current politics, etc, are hopefully to come in another (probably multiple) blog posts, but it’s pretty important to understanding some of the world we live in, or at least, what we have to lose. It’s easy to consider bad societies in the past or the future and trace their formation, but apparently when we’re on a path which could end up with a similar result we don’t notice it (which does make sense psychologically and logically).
The Wonderbox by Roman Krznaric
This book is all about looking at problems we face personally or as a culture across all aspects of life (love, family, death, work, creativity, many more) and probing history and all different cultures to come up with suggestions for improving our situation. It’s all about learning from history. It doesn’t preach at you, just suggests some things to consider, and is very interesting just for learning about histories and cultures, raising questions and giving different angles to see things from, let alone that it has tips which could easily lead you to improve your life and be happier. Very dense (as it covers the whole breadth of life), so I’m sure I’ll have to reread it to glean more of its wisdom.
Any other books along these lines that anyone wishes to recommend to me? Freakonomics, Blink, and a couple of others, are ones that spring to mind but I’m yet to read.